Rooted in old growth

When it comes to finding secret, out-of-the-way pockets of forests that have miraculously escaped the ax, Bill Sweeney is the "sleuth of old growth."

When it comes to finding secret, out-of-the-way pockets of forests that have miraculously escaped the ax, Bill Sweeney is the "sleuth of old growth."

His ability to discover the last remaining tracts of giant, ancient trees is uncanny. In the Poconos alone, Bill has bushwhacked through thousands of acres of state forests, state game lands, state parks, national park lands and county-owned woods, and has revealed hidden, venerable glens in place after place.

Bill and I have been friends for about 10 years and have explored many Pocono natural areas together. He's an environmental educator at Jacobsburg State Park in Wind Gap, and his passion, besides old-growth forests, is preserving land.

When he finds an area that he considers special, he contacts the appropriate authorities (The Nature Conservancy, National Park Service) to alert them and ensure that these places receive the protection they deserve.

Of Pennsylvania's 29 million acres of land, only a few thousand have never been cut by lumbermen or private landowners (mostly in the western and central parts of the state), so any remaining virgin forests are too precious to risk losing.

I was lucky enough to accompany Bill to a few of these rare parcels on a beautiful day in late August. The first area was in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, just off Route 209 near Dingmans Ferry.

Uphill off the road, the woods seemed ordinary by Pocono standards: medium-sized oaks, red maples, black locusts and other deciduous trees. Then, after about 50 yards, we suddenly came upon massive trunks, free of any branches for 40 or 50 feet. They were all white pines and hemlocks, some of the biggest I've ever seen. Many of the trees were between 3 and 4 feet in diameter, and probably 200 to 300 years old.

Biggest of all, standing high above any of its neighbors on a hill across a shallow ravine, was a white pine that Bill had previously measured with a clinometer at 161 feet high! This tree may very well be the tallest one in the Poconos.

The experience, however, was bittersweet, because almost every one of the massive hemlock trees was either dead or dying from the Asian woolly adelgid insects.

Our last stop was even more impressive. Off Tott's Gap Road near the village of Delaware Water Gap — again, part of the national recreation area — Bill took me down a dirt road that paralleled a few intermittent streams. As we cut into the forest, we walked across rough terrain covered with fallen, moss-covered logs, big clumps of ferns and lots of rocks. I asked Bill how the heck he found these places and he simply answered, "Just like this." After crossing one of the streams we came within view of huge columns rising from the forest floor and soaring out of sight. They were tuliptrees, the tallest deciduous tree in the eastern United States. Only when we stood beside these trees did their true stature really humble us. They were more than 4 feet in diameter, and a few of them had arrow-straight trunks with no branches for 70 feet. They were probably 130 or 140 feet tall.

And they weren't alone.

There were also enormous white and red oaks, sugar and red maples, white ashes, black birches, shagbark hickories, tupelos and one big white pine. Once again, however, almost all the big, old hemlocks were dead or dying and resembled skeletons of the venerable giants that formerly dominated this forest.

Bill and I wondered what species of tree would take the place of Pennsylvania's official state tree if these monarchs continue to disappear.

Our few remaining virgin forests are, in many ways, living museums that represent what much of Pennsylvania once resembled at a time when American Indians inhabited them. The loss of one of the most important members diminishes this representation.

Nevertheless, Bill and I walked out of these majestic forests at the end of the day comforted in the knowledge that these tracts — as small as they are — are safe.